Machiavelli: The Novel

by Joseph Markulin

  While all eyes were on the blond beauty with the magnificent coiffure, Niccolo was paying closer attention to the dark figure at her side. It was not Lucrezia but Caesar who rode into Ferrara that day with the sneer of a conqueror entering a vanquished city. Albeit quietly and without a shot being fired, another Italian city had fallen to the Borgia. Niccolo had to keep reminding himself that this was a wedding, that this was not politics.

  In the days ahead, there was no shortage of diversions and entertainments, and even Niccolo occasionally found solace or at least some distraction from the nagging problems that beset him and his republic. Flags and banners hung everywhere, and the carnival atmosphere continued, unabated late into the night. Every sort of profligate behavior was tolerated. Music filled the air. There were cycles of plays staged continuously, including elaborate allegories that were impossible to decipher. Did the lion represent Ercole d’Este? Or the king of France? Who was the fox? And the black knights with white doves on their helmets, were they good or bad?

  Pageant wagons hauled by horses and mules and oxen filled the streets and squares with every conceivable type of spectacle from the obscene to the sublime, from fire eating and sword swallowing to reenactments of stories from the Old Testament. Were Adam and Eve meant to stand for Alphonso and Lucrezia? Inside the court, where more-sophisticated tastes prevailed, the plays of Plautus were produced in Latin and their lascivious, farcical material rendered unintelligible by the language in which they were staged, a language that almost nobody there understood.

  There was a tournament that was more a display of sartorial splendor than a show of manly arms. Exotic plumes and feathered capes were more in evidence than swords and lances and chain mail. There were endless processions in which notables and would-be notables advertised their presence by bearing extravagant gifts to the newlyweds. Nothing in the way of pomp and circumstance was overlooked, no stone left unturned in the pursuit of exciting, exaggerated, ostentatious public display. Wealth was on parade.

  Niccolo, ever the astute observer, looked past the glitter and heard the whispers and the sniping that buzzed just below the outer shell of all that finery.

  “The Spanish are so vulgar! Duke Ercole’s daughters are much more richly dressed. And more tastefully.”

  “If they take so much time with their dress, it’s because they’re so plain.”

  “They may be plain, but their pearls are twice the size of hers!”

  So it went. Money and monetary worth were never far from the surface. “Those are scales of beaten gold all down the front of Alphonso’s suit. It cost over six thousand ducats!”

  A grand reception had been arranged in the Ducal Palace, in the great Hall of Mirrors where the bride and groom were to be presented to one another for the first time. As the ranking Florentine ambassador, Niccolo had been invited. Actually, he had received a curt note from Caesar Borgia. It was more of a summons than an invitation. He had had no contact with Borgia since his arrival in Ferrara, but the unsolicited note made it clear that Caesar was well aware of his whereabouts. Caesar seemed to be aware of everything.

  On the way to the reception, Niccolo could not resist stopping one more time to view his favorite diversion. It was the scene in which a knight was fighting a dragon. A naked virgin quivered in the background, anxiously awaiting rescue. She’d been quivering and waiting there for three days while her dauntless knight fought on. To Niccolo, the knight and the virgin were nothing special, but the dragon was a marvel to behold. It was a mechanical construction, a hulking green serpent over ten feet tall. It could reel, thrust, and plunge thanks to a clever combination of ropes, pulleys, winches, and levers. Hot steam and fire shot from its mouth. It made frightening, screeching noises. The interesting thing about the little play—Niccolo had seen it already a number of times—was that, according to the whim of the actors and the response of the crowd, there were two different endings. Sometimes the knight won. Sometimes, it was the dragon. That night, it was the dragon. Walking away, Niccolo found himself wondering, who was the knight? And who was the dragon?

  When he entered the Great Hall, Niccolo was greeted by the same rush of light and noise that met the timid, young Girolamo Savonarola many years ago in that very hall. The dwarves were gone, but the fires burned just as brightly, the music and laughter echoed just as loudly. There was just as much blond hair and silk and satin as ever before. Although many of those present might look on him as a social inferior, it meant little to Niccolo. He had a confidence born of matching wits with the likes of the formidable countess of Forli and then with the admittedly witless king of France, witless but a powerful head of state. Niccolo had no fear of the court or its courtiers. In fact, they amused him.

  Checkered patterns seemed to be the particular passion of the gentlemen in attendance. Brightly colored squares of the shiniest silk hung from many shoulders and encased many a leg. “How gay,” thought Niccolo Machiavelli, who was clad in the dependable respectability of his usual Florentine lucco. From the look of it, he was the only Florentine in attendance and, oddly enough, he was conspicuous by the very plainness and sobriety of his dress. In that flowery sea of green and pink harlequin, the stubborn Florentine secretary considered himself one of the few guests who maintained some shred of dignity. His one concession to court life was the mask.

  The mask had been a gift from Caesar. It had arrived with the invitation, along with instructions for its use. Masks were all the rage in Rome, and the fashion had taken such a hold in the Eternal City that it was not unusual to see men and women going about masked in broad daylight. Nearly every social affair had evolved into a masquerade.

  Needless to say, all the guests at the Este palace that evening were appropriately masked. Niccolo, like many others, rather enjoyed the anonymity it gave him. He mixed easily with the crowd, drifting in and out of anonymous conversations on frivolous subjects. He could identify his interlocutors only by the ring of their accents in his ears, the sing-song Romagnouli, the guttural Lombards, the brutish, sputtering Romans, the Neapolitans, more Spanish than Italian, and then the Spanish themselves. Nowhere did he encounter the clear, sweet tones of his own superior Florentine dialect.

  Niccolo moved over to a table on which refreshments were laid out and helped himself to the excellent wine that had been provided. He helped himself to the sweetmeats and the marzipan. On a raised table nearby, however, was one treat to which no one dared help himself. The entire city of Ferrara had been meticulously reproduced in molded sugar! From the top of the miniature Ducal Palace flew the twin flags of the Este and the Borgia families. Niccolo suppressed a sarcastic snort when it occurred to him that at some point in the evening Caesar might swoop down and devour the whole thing. “No,” he told himself, laughing, he had to remember that “this is not politics, this is a wedding.”

  But thoughts of politics were never far from Niccolo’s mind, and he had been painfully aware of Caesar’s presence throughout the evening. Although he had not spoken to him, it was easy enough to pick the man out in the crowd. Even masked and disguised, his movements and his imperious bearing gave him away. Added to that was the fact that Caesar shared the dais with the portly Duke Ercole. Perhaps “shared” is too strong a word, for it was Caesar and not Ercole who presided over the festivities; it was the guest and not the host who was the center of attention and who dominated the proceedings. As the evening dragged on, a steady stream of masked men and women passed in review to pay him their respects. Hands were kissed and embraces exchanged. Whispered conversations were held. One and all went to prostrate themselves before the new Caesar, to pay him homage. Niccolo finally understood why he had been invited. It was to bear witness to this spectacle of servility, this simple little allegory of power.

  His gloomy ruminations were interrupted by deafening trumpet blasts that rattled the plate and silver and shook the walls. Suddenly, from nowhere, smoke engulfed the raised dais. When it cleared away a minute later, a lone young man stood at the cente
r of the platform. The heavy scales of beaten gold on his chest identified him as the bridegroom, Alphonso d’Este. He was wearing the much-discussed 6,000-ducat suit.

  The sweet music of viols and flutes then filled the hall, and an immense gold ball appeared in clouds of incense over Alphonso’s head. It descended ponderously, wobbling a little, and came to rest at his feet. Imperceptibly at first, the ball began to melt. Niccolo rubbed his eyes, already stung by smoke and incense, to make sure. It was indeed melting. He had no idea how it was done. As the gold covering disintegrated into thin air, the image of the bride inside it emerged. Her dark-red velvet gown was the first visual detail to leak through the rapidly disappearing screen. There were little gasps from the crowd. In a moment, Lucrezia’s long, luxurious hair was visible, and, offering her hand to her new husband, she stepped gracefully from her celestial bubble. Wild cheering greeted the couple, who held their joined hands aloft in recognition. But underneath the cheering were the insistent whispers—“A red dress!” An Italian bride would have worn white! “Che vergogna!”

  The couple danced. Niccolo idly wondered if she were beautiful, if he were handsome, if they would take the masks off later so he could see. After the bride and groom had begun it, the dancing became general. Lucrezia danced the second dance with her brother Caesar. By this time, Niccolo had had quite a bit to drink, and he was finally succeeding in forgetting about politics for a while. He was looking around for a way to rid himself of a fat Venetian companion who had inexplicably latched on to him. The Venetian was hideously turned out in a coat, a fur coat that seemed to be his pride and joy. “Do you know how many?” he was saying. “One thousand three hundred and thirty four! One thousand three hundred and thirty four squirrel pelts in this coat! And I picked every one myself. Don’t imagine for a minute either that I only had to buy one thousand three hundred and thirty four. Oh no! I had to buy well over two thousand! Do you have any idea how much . . .”

  Someone clamped a hand on Niccolo, so hard that it sent a sharp burst of pain up his arm. He did not have to turn around to know who it was. “Is the Florentine secretary enjoying himself?” asked the silky voice.

  “Very much so, Excellency,” replied Niccolo nonplussed. Caesar circled around him. He was wearing a black mask with his gleaming white teeth visible through the aperture.

  “And how do you find the bride, lovely?”

  “Exquisite, to judge by her hair. I haven’t seen her face.”

  “Later she’ll remove the mask for the edification of all our friends. And we have so many friends here tonight. Don’t you agree?”

  “An incredible number of friends,” Niccolo sourly acknowledged.

  Borgia was pleased that his demonstration had gone well. Florence would soon know that he had many friends among the duchies of the Romagna. “Our friends here have treated us extremely well. They’ve spared no expense, as you can see. And they’ve been so generous. Ercole has given Lucrezia a husband and me a brother. His daughter Isabella, who is married to the lord of Mantova, has sent me a gift of a hundred masks. Can you imagine a more thoughtful gift? It seems everyone wants to be Caesar’s friend.” Leaving Niccolo to draw his own conclusions, Borgia moved off. He moved silently—like a cat.

  Niccolo followed him as he moved unctuously through the crowd, again kissing and embracing. Everyone wants to be Caesar’s friend. Ferrara gives him a brother. Mantova sends masks—a hundred masks. And Florence? Poor Florence. Florence sends him Niccolo Machiavelli.

  Determined to drive the politics from his mind at any cost, Niccolo continued to drink the wine that went down so smoothly. He stood for a while, watching an incredible display of manual dexterity. A musician was playing three lutes at a time. His fingers moved almost faster than the eye could follow, at least faster than Niccolo’s sluggish and drunken gaze was capable of moving. Three lutes at once! He applauded. In a blur of arms and fingers, the man played on, picking up the tempo. He corded and strummed and plucked with both hands. Shouts of “Ole!” went up among the Spanish, who were dancing to the frenzied tune, or rather stamping their feet in uncouth but lusty exuberance.

  Niccolo’s attention turned from the musician to the dancers. Among them were several of the ladies in waiting who had accompanied Lucrezia Borgia. They were all dark and mysterious, all the more dark and mysterious in their masks. All the more inviting. He watched as they abandoned themselves to the music, as small feet and well-turned ankles flashed out from under their long gowns in the heat of the dance.

  In a touching little ceremony earlier in the evening, the Spanish ladies were formally, but tenderly, released from service by Lucrezia. They were replaced by Ferrarrese attendants, deemed more suitable to a woman who was now, after all, a daughter of the house of Este. The Spanish maids, like Lucrezia, were dressed in gowns of the deepest red velvet. The newly engaged Ferrarrese maids were dressed more appropriately, in white. But the Spanish girls had gold and strands of tiny pearls woven into their dark, luxurious hair, and they danced recklessly, and they threw their heads back in shameless laughter as they danced, and Niccolo could not take his eyes off of them.

  The ambidextrous lutenist almost collapsed from his exertions, but not before bringing the dancers to a feverish, uninhibited climax.

  The girls, some gasping for breath, took advantage of the lull in the music to refresh themselves. An embroidered handkerchief was unfurled to mop a graceful neck. Cups were raised to full, thirsty lips. Fans appeared in delicate, jeweled hands to stir the thick air and waft an intoxicating perfume in Niccolo’s direction.

  While waiting for the music to start up again, the girls became aware of Niccolo’s attentions. They were whispering among themselves and giggling. They engaged in a silent dialogue with him, in which their coquettish gestures alternated between the inviting and the demure, the naughty and the modest, the coy and brazen. They beckoned to him and then dissolved into little gales of flirtatious laughter among themselves.

  It was not long before the lutenist, fortified by several deep and satisfying draughts of cool wine, was joined by a Spaniard with a kithara and another with a tambourine. The three musicians, pounding on their instruments, had the dancers back on their feet in no time, and Niccolo, a slightly clumsy but enthusiastic devotee of the dance, was drawn into the swirl of black hair and red velvet.

  They played on and on. They played like demons. Niccolo danced and danced, passing from one provocative partner to another in the general melee. As the evening flew by, the staccato rhythms seemed to pick up speed, the tambourine rang and crashed, and the applause was more thunderous after every number. Niccolo had finally managed to forget Caesar Borgia and Florence and politics, and he was having so much fun he was not even aware of his achievement. What he was slowly becoming aware of, though, was one girl in the mad, whirling cloud of girls around him whose laugh was more alluring, whose mouth more sensuous, whose breasts a little higher and a little rounder.

  And was he imagining it, or was she more responsive? When his hand strayed, as it was occasionally inclined to do, did she let it linger a little longer? Did she chide him less severely? Did she throw herself into his arms more willingly, more impulsively?

  As the number of dancers dwindled, Niccolo found himself more and more often paired with her. They sought each other out. Dizzy and breathing hard, they clung to each other for support after each mad, sweaty foray onto the dance floor. They toasted each other. They toasted the musicians and the wine. Her throaty, heavily accented Italian thrilled him.

  He felt drawn to her in a visceral way, and the way she pressed herself against him, languidly, unashamedly, told him she too was feeling this thing—and surrendering to it. The rush of desire welling up in Niccolo might well have proved embarrassing, but for the generous lucco he was wearing, which concealed all things in its loose and ample folds. Other gay blades, in short doublets and tight hose had a considerably more difficult time hiding their excitement.

  He steered her away from her c
ompanions, toward an isolated corner of the great colonnaded and curtained hall. Willingly, she let herself be led. They touched each other, tentatively. He traced the outline of her lips, visible below the black satin mask, with his finger. She planted a tiny kiss on his fingertip. When Niccolo drew her to himself, she offered no resistance. He kissed her on the shoulder and on up the neck and felt the goose bumps his kisses raised. She kissed him lightly on the ear, teasing him with her tongue, and whispered, “You are the Florentine envoy, aren’t you?”

  Niccolo started at the question. How did she know? “What!” was all he could manage to say.

  “I have to talk to you. About the Sforza children in Florence. It’s urgent, please. Half an hour. Outside, across the piazza. In the park.” And she was gone.

  Dumbfounded, Niccolo stood rooted to the spot. He watched as his lover, his momentary lover, gaily rejoined her companions. The magic intoxication of the night’s touches and smells melted suddenly away, and the cold, hard edge of anger was left in its place. “Puttana!” Niccolo spit the curse through his barred teeth. “Who gives a fuck, who gives a shit, who gives a goddamn about the Sforza children!” But even before he asked the question, he already knew the answer, and it only served to fuel his anger. Only one man was overly concerned at the moment about the Sforza children—Caesar Borgia.

  One of the sticking points in the Florentine negotiations with Borgia, and there were innumerable sticking points, was the fate of the Sforza children. Committed by their mother Caterina, they were safe in Florence under Florentine protection. But Niccolo’s instructions had been explicit. He was to deny all knowledge of the Sforza children; he was never to admit that they were on Florentine soil.